I’ve read several on-line World of Warcraft blogs and I was quite impressed. The bloggers all seem such reasonable and mature people and I’m glad to find the company I’m in is more than just l337 13-year olds.

My World of Warcraft addiction at the moment, aye, addiction I say, involves me most every night. It’s also gotten me to 60 on a Tauren Shaman, 45 on a Night Elf Hunter, and 45 on a Night Elf Rogue. And so many ‘toons it makes me sad there are only, like, 30 or 35 hours a day to play them all.

I’ll use this forum to tell you the exploits of my Shammy, Darkhoof, while in Molton Core, and the young Druid couple Msaker and Silverfoot adventuring in Westfall, and the Orc couple Oddity and Droonda, and the Night Elf couple Nightsown and Moonlily, and the odd couple, Bohemond the Human Paladin and Durilda the Dwarf Paladinette. Darkhand, a brooding Night Elf Rogue, assisting, but not joining, the guild Exiles of Gilneas. Another Bohemond, older and wiser Human Paladin who shares the world with Effilda an aspiring mage, and the druids Msaker and Silverfoot. (I am a fortunate gamer in that my wife enjoys this game as much as I do.)

Too, this blog is a way to catalog my own WoW experience for myself. Who I played, when, and what I experienced. There are so many stories here.

Kinless, the blog’s name, was the my first character.

Kinless is a Night Elf Hunter I took to level 45 on Argent Dawn, an RP server. There was a bit of a scare about level 30 or so when the name police took away my name. I objected, citing historical precedent to having a name that is an epithet and Kinless was restored his birthright. (Ah, the irony!) Ancient history, months and months ago, after Kinless had gained level 43 or so, and finally purchased his mount, a white spotted riding tiger that matched Jaguarette, my swamp jaguar pet, he was on a counter-strike raid in Ashenvale. Guildless he caught the attention of someone and was invited into a guild called The Kindred. Kinless signed up with The Kindred.

Up to level 43 I was very much a solo player. I finally began to join various parties to down the elites in Stranglethorn Vale like King Bangalash. But till then, and afterwards where I could, I continued to solo. Kinless is now camped in Gadgetzan and when I play him, so seldom nowadays, he makes slow but ever steady progress. Upshot was he was kicked from The Kindred due to not playing anymore.

Why did Kinless retire? Well I took the jump onto a PvP server. Actually several.

My first foray I created a few horde characters on Firetree. A Tauren Warrior and Bluetusk, a Troll Rogue. (I’d just watched a player-made WoW video called “Changes.”) But that didn’t last long.

I then created Darkhand, a Night Elf Rogue, on Frostmane.

Before I’d left Teldrassil Darkhand joined a party to do a quest in the Barrow Den. I didn’t really know the rogue mechanics yet, but I’d had a lot of WoW experience with Kinless, so I handled myself well. Anyway the party had two people in a guild. I don’t recall the name of this guild. I asked for admission and was invited and joined. Cool. And we actually played together.

The three of us enjoyed our excursions in Ashenvale. Rooting and smashing and slicing and dicing the odd Horde character that was so unfortunate as to cross our paths.

From that guild we moved to another, and that was a good guild.

RP or PvE server: Guilds are optional. PvP server: Guilds are so very helpful.

I was with that guild for a few weeks when news came of some new realms opening up. Several of us left our guild and jumped to a new server, Smolderthorn, to start life anew and Horde!

(Well, before we made that jump one our friends had left the game in favor of Magic the Gathering: Online. I’d played that for a while as well. He’d just downloaded the game and purchased enough decks that when I logged on to play him a game he thoroughly thrashed me. So much for my MtG skillz. :)

Anway, back to our move to Smolderthorn. This was back in May ’05. We all started Tauren characters. Mine became Darkhoof, a Tauren Shaman. (Named in honor of Darkhand, my Rogue.) On our first visit to Thunderbluff our guildmaster made our guild. Loktar Legion. (Lok’tar meaning “Ride Forth!” or “Charge!” in Orcish.)

That guildmaster is still playing today, following a summerlong absence, in the guild we made, following several mergers, as an Undead Mage, level 54 now, and now an Orc Hunter in his 20’s.

Our guildmaster became friends with an Undead Priestess in a guild called Dias de los Muertes. (“Day of the Dead.”) A Mage/Priest duo can be a powerful thing and they did well. So well talk came about our merging. Loktar Legion and Dias de los Muertes merged and became Day of the Dead.

And boy, we were all moving up. Day of the Dead coalesced so well that soon enough we were making raids on Menethil Harbor. (This was before the big Battle Ground additions and we only got meaningful PvP honor by taking the battle to our enemies.)

And then we began an alliance with another guild, Satori, and that went so well, we merged and became Requiem. And Requiem has become a Molton Core raiding guild. We’re just starting out but we’re doing great. Three raids under our belts and we’ve taken down four bosses so far. I have a Sorcerous Blade to show for it. Our previous raid location, Zul Gurub, provided me my Zulian Defender. And our raids on UBRS and Strat and Scholo have scored me set pieces and some good equipment and cash.

At about the time I began doing UBRS Skullcrusher was invited to come crash our party on Smolderthorn. One week you’re Gods in Battlegrounds, next you have Paladins, seeming Crit specc’d, PWNing your butt up and down the Arathi Basin. “I couldn’t do that. Could you do that? How can they do that? … Who are those guys?”

Then, some good news. A new server format was newly offered. RP-PvP. I created a Night Elf Druid, Dreamrunner, a Night Elf Warrior, Nightsown, and a Human Paladin, Bohemond, on Emerald Dream. (With the expansion possibly bringing The Emerald Dream and Druids more into the limelight, I figured these were good characters to start.) And there would be no massive influx of players from another server with 6 months head-start gearing up on you since this is the first of the RP-PvP servers.

Darkhoof remains active on Smolderthorn as Requiem starts their Molton Core raids. Check out the [Sorcerous Blade] on this Shaman!

So went my journey from Kinless, to Darkhand, to Darkhoof and now Dreamrunner and on into whatever the future holds here. And I’ll be recounting the days here.